The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

Way, way, infinately better than Narnia #1: Mr Tumlus Is The Only Saving Grace. Rona thought it was a little boring, but Ryan and I adored it.


The Plot: (This one is going to be long, because it's fresh in my memory.)

It's Narnia, but a good thousand plus years later. All the Narnians have been killed off/sent into hiding, and a new breed of faux-Spanish humans rule the world. Caspian (aka Ben Barnes, aka Some small role in Stardust aka REALLY HANDSOME MAN) is the heir to the throne that his Uncle, Miraz (aka some Italian man), is looking after for him. On the night the movie starts, Miraz has a son and thus realizes, really, why keep Caspers around? Luckily, Casps is warned by his wizened tutor, who passes him some mysterious covered object and gives a foreboding warning, and escapes into the forest. Hot on his heels are his Uncle's soldiers, out for his blood. Caspers runs into some dwarves just as the men decend upon him, and he takes out the mystery object, which is just a horn, and blows it. Whoop whoop, one dwarf gets kidnapped and Caspers is knocked out.

Meanwhile, in Post WWI London, the 4 kiddies are a little bit more grown up. Susan (aka Anna Popplewell aka nose and lips are strangely bublous aka Thunderpants! haha) is getting hit on by some nerd at the newsagents and has a hilarious moment where she tells him her name is Phyllis (just like my granny!) when that little monster, Lucy (aka Georgie Henley - do you know how much I hate that name?) runs out yelling "Susan!" Silly brat. Anyway, they run into the train station and Peter (aka William Moseley aka All Grown Up Now, Eh?) is in a fight with some chaps showing off his male egoness, and Edmund (aka Skander Keynes aka Really Quite Funny Now) jumps in to help. Anyhoo, they deal with that problem and are waiting for the train when suddenly ... ok, I'm getting a little too detailed for my own good.

Basically, the kids end up in Narnia and are shocked to find so much time has passed. Meanwhile ,Caspers is gathering an army of Narnians to fight his Uncle and take back what is his. Also meanwhile, his uncle is killing off important people and amassing some armies. Oh yea, and everyone is sad that Aslan isn't around except Lucy, being the crazy little thing that she is, keeps seeing him. The kids hook up with Caspers and decide to work together. Susan and Caspers have a moment, lots of jokes about how young they are.

Peter (who I keep trying to call John for some reason...) and Caspers kind of butt heads because of the two-alpha-males problem, but they go attack the castle in a very exciting scene, but lots of people die and for some reason that silly little cow with the bottle of ever-life doesn't come save them this time. They are very angry with each other, Caspers considers getting the Ice Queen to help in a slightly-redundent but very well done scene, but Edmund kills her so it's ok.

Uncle comes to fight them and there is a big scene and they lose and Uncle takes over the world. Ha-ha not really, but everything from there is pretty self-explanatory.

Then Caspers kisses Susan, and she and Peter-John are told they can never come back to Narnia, and the 4 kids are booted out. Susan is greeted merrily by nerd-o who is all "Hey Phyllis!" and it was the saddest thing I've ever seen. The end.


The Good: Well, might as well get it out there: Handsome Handsome Man, Prince Caspian. Also, Peter is all grown up and looking sexy, although acting like a bit of a tool. Plus, his real name is Will, so, er, soulmates? So that's the best part taken care of. The fight scenes were pretty amazing, and heartbreaking. Look out for the secret thing that Caspers does during the last fight, it will take your breath away. Edmund totally redeems himself in this one and is very endearing. Susan and Lucy have some hilarious banter about how shit Susan is at flirting. There is a funny mouse that is very close to Puss In Boots from Shrek mixed with Sir Digamus or whatever from the Labyrinth. Oh yea, also yay to the costumes, especially Susans'!


The Bad: As usual, there is too much preaching because Aslan is secretly-not-secretly God. There are some overly melo-dramatic emotional things, and they hit you over the head a bit with not believing in him. Lots of the conflict was very trivial and avoidable, which made me mad. Some of the plot was a little random, and could have been tied up better. Lucy was not very good, but better than last time. She is too self-righteous, and everyone loves her too much, and also, she only wants to save her little-people/creature friends.

The Ugly: The women. I mean, sad, but true. There was lots of male eye-candy, and then there was big-nosed Susan who is cute but not cute enough to get Caspers for sure, and also little uggers Lucy, who couldn't be eye candy anyway, unless you are some kind of pervert.

Also ugly: Poor Susan's life after she leaves Narnia. I mean really, how tragic, you'll never recover from that one. I was very fixated on this all evening. I think Su would be too. It's just one of those things, she and Caspers didn't even get time to really hang out or anything and she was sent away, and she'll never find anyone that hot in the real world, especially without her "High Queen" status. And even if she did, he'd be dating Giselle or something, not homely little schoolgirl Susan. But props to her for being so Girl-Powery and fighting and being really cool with her bow and arrow. I remember when I was a kid and had a bow and arrow thing that I made myself. I was awesome. I digress.

Yay or Nay? Yay. I thought it was great, if you take all the morally bits with a pinch of salt and remember that it's still a kids movie. Su, for sure. And Sonia. And all girl-kind.